


It could be so very different

by llassah



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-26
Updated: 2010-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:50:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llassah/pseuds/llassah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you, lamentables, for the beta. You’re a lifesaver, as ever. This was originally written for picfor1000, the prompt can be found <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisajoanne/4178603386/">here</a></p>
    </blockquote>





	It could be so very different

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, lamentables, for the beta. You’re a lifesaver, as ever. This was originally written for picfor1000, the prompt can be found [here](http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisajoanne/4178603386/)

She calls him Holmes when she wants to remind him of John, and Sherlock when she wants to remind him of himself. He knows exactly what she is doing, she is well aware of that, but awareness of manipulation does not mean it is in vain. He calls her Mary, and John ‘Watson’, or ‘my dear fellow’, ‘or ‘my dearest fellow’, or ‘old boy’, any number of innocuously manly names which turn in private into intimacies. Irene is Irene. It is the way he says her name which changes. Mary’s name is unchanging; she is a fixed point for him.

It happened incrementally. First it was Holmes and John, then there was Irene and her and a series of skirmishes, lingering glances and hands brushing for longer than is decent. Then there was Irene and Holmes at a dinner party, and a card game that she could play better than any of them knew. Then there were higher stakes, escalating dares- unpin your hair, take another drink, left shoe off, four buttons undone, kiss him- and a night sprawled on the floor breathless with laughter and desire as they clung to each other as if they were about to drown.

Irene never stays for very long. She takes Mary out, both of them dressed as boys and teaches her street slang, thieves cant, steals apples for her and kisses her on street corners in the pooled shadows. It is a strange sort of wooing, drawing her into Irene’s world irresistibly, throwing her out every time she leaves. When she isn’t there, Mary’s male clothes stay in the back of the wardrobe. Not forgotten, waiting. When she comes back, the nights are alive and they eat oranges as they navigate London’s monstrous sprawl with their hair tucked under their caps.

Holmes is curious about her because of John. In some ways he is simple, a child- she lured John away from him, so she must have something he could offer John to win him back. A bird’s egg, or a shining stone, chocolates in bowls or berries to stain their lips and fingers red. He touches her methodically, draws cries and whimpers from her with fingers and lips and smiles down at her when she loses control. John sometimes watches them both, hat on and tilted rakishly, directs them sometimes- she likes it when you do this. Touch him here.

John likes Irene. Mary knows this, despite his grumbling when she stays. He still has trouble believing he can confuse Holmes, so watching someone else doing it is recompense for everything Holmes does. Irene pours him cups of tea, and tells him dazzling stories until he talks about India, Peshwar, tells traveller’s tales that conjure golden sand and blistering heat, worlds away. They are a far cry from the hoarse, tearful confessions that she hears after John’s nightmares. These stories are the ones that belong to daylight and easy, relaxed laughter; Irene can bring out the daytime side of his travels.

Holmes and Irene dance around each other, dazzling, scintillating. He worries about her terribly- only Mary seems to notice this, and she keeps her counsel through the hissed arguments, ignores the way Holmes closes his eyes for a few seconds and his face looks young and terribly, inhumanly tired until Irene puts her hand on his shoulder and he leans incrementally into her for support. Irene is clever and beautiful, and would be good if she chose to, so very very good, but there is something crooked inside her that Holmes is drawn to because they are just the same.

John tells her about cases as he lies with his head in her lap, voice steady and warm, and she is utterly content as she threads her fingers through his hair, studies his face so she knows everything about it. He doesn’t know how to hide things, and it is what she loves the most about him. He wears his life on his face, on the scars mapped out on his body. He carries the pride he has in Holmes in his voice, in the warmth mingled with exasperation. He has never hidden his love so she forgives him everything.

They go to a dinner dance together. Holmes has the first dance with her, his hand warm on her back. He dances well, with a negligent elegance and awareness of her every movement that makes her feel as if she could do anything and he would follow, that nothing she did would leave him at a loss, and it is that sort of thing that helps her to realise what a fine line it is between a dance and a murder, the thousands of transgressions that she commits in her mind every day. She could kiss him at any moment.

Then John dances with Irene, and Holmes watches her watching them, with his mouth tilted a little. He could undo her in a single sentence, with a single observation. She just watches the little dip in John’s step, the elegance with which Irene compensates for it so that the slightest stumble looks planned and feels so grateful her heart aches. When she next looks at Holmes, he raises his glass to her. She has no idea what he’s thinking, but he puts a hand on her shoulder, almost absent-mindedly, and they stay like that until the music has finished playing.

This is how they turn out, sharing a bed with the morning light coming through the curtains, a tangle of limbs, her hair fanned out on the pillow, mingling with Irene’s as they kiss lazily, as the men sleep and London wakes up slowly with street cries and horse-cart clatters. John’s fingers are twined with hers and he is warm against her back. Holmes is naked on top of the covers, skin glowing in the sunlight. They are silent as their hands trace out patterns on skin, but Irene’s eyes sparkle with wicked laughter. Mary bites her lip and watches.


End file.
